


dress code

by JenTheSweetie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America Sam Wilson, Gen, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steve Rogers gets a life, exactly as much Steve/Tony as there is in canon aka some
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenTheSweetie/pseuds/JenTheSweetie
Summary: Bucky, to absolutely no one’s surprise, had Opinions on Sam’s new outfit.“No,” Bucky said, scrolling through the options.  “No.  Oh my god, no.  Hey, quick question.  Are you trying to make bad guys afraid of you or are you hoping they’ll laugh themselves into submission?”“You can go fuck yourself,” Sam said, snatching his laptop back, but the thing was that Sam kind of agreed with him.Sam decides to consult the expert.





	dress code

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Endgame. Spoilers below. 
> 
> As usual, this story could not exist without Snapjack: she provided brainstorming partnership, the title, and several lines I copied and pasted into this verbatim. Thank you for being my writing partner and so much more.

Bucky, to absolutely no one’s surprise, had Opinions on Sam’s new outfit.

“No,” Bucky said, scrolling through the options.  “No.  Oh my god, no.  Hey, quick question.  Are you trying to make bad guys afraid of you or are you hoping they’ll laugh themselves into submission?”

“You can go fuck yourself,” Sam said, snatching his laptop back, but the thing was that Sam kind of agreed with him.  The designs were all terrible: some too garish, some too subtle, some just plain ugly.  Bruce had sent over some designs he’d found in Tony’s old files, which all seemed to be built around making sure Captain America’s ass was on display and were somewhat traumatizing, Maria Hill had expressed her opinion that “colors are unnecessarily dangerous” and recommended he go with all black, and even Thor contributed a cartoonish drawing that entirely left out the flightsuit (“Just learn to fly without it!” he’d exclaimed when Sam pointed it out).

So really, in the end, Sam had no choice but to consult the expert.

-

It was raining in New Jersey when Sam pulled up to the house.

He’d been once before, on Bucky’s birthday (“Which he _knows_  I don’t celebrate, for the record,” Bucky had grumbled as they’d walked up the slightly overgrown pathway, and Sam had just elbowed him), but he still triple-checked the address and fiddled with his phone before getting out of the car.  He wasn’t nervous - Steve had never made him nervous; that was one of the things he knew Steve had always liked about him - but he was… something.  It wasn’t every day you talked to a living legend about ideas for how to update his signature look, even if that living legend _was_  a guy whose ugly-ass flannel shirts you used to throw into the laundry with your load of colors.  

Sam jogged up the path (slightly less overgrown, now, and he had a feeling that he knew who was responsible for that; the Winter Soldier had grown to enjoy gardening over the years, the weirdo) but was still drenched by the time he reached the porch.  Steve must have been waiting at the window for him, because he opened up the screen door before Sam could even knock, and Sam gave him a wide grin, reminding himself that whatever feelings he had about Steve living out a quiet, lonely retirement in the Jersey suburbs were staying locked in a box in the trunk of the car, where they belonged.

Steve grabbed him in one of those old-man hugs with a couple of slaps on the back, still firm almost to the point of bruising, which made Sam’s smile feel a little more genuine as he pulled back.  “Already got coffee on,” Steve said, leading him through the house to the kitchen.  “When I got your call last week I had to go down in the basement to find my old sketchpads.  Then I realized that fashion has changed quite a lot since the last time I drew up any uniforms and had to start from scratch.  I’ve got two or three good choices for you and a lot of drawings you’re gonna find pretty funny.”

Sam chuckled.  “So you think you’ve figured out fashion now?  That’d be news to me.”

“Even _I_  know those knee-high boots I used to wear were a weird choice,” Steve said, pouring two cups of coffee with steady hands.  

“Not sure what Fury was thinking, letting you leave the house looking like that.”  Sam watched as Steve barely stained one of the coffees with cream, just the way Sam liked it.  “I gotta be honest, I’m not down for playing Captain America dress-up.”

“Never thought you would be.”  Seve set the coffee in front of Sam and then settled down in the chair next to Sam with his own, pushing it aside to pull a sketchbook forward.  “You need something a little more… understated.  So pretty much the exact of opposite of this,” Steve said, angling the book so Sam could see a version of the Captain America suit that was basically just one big American flag from head to toe.  

“That’s the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Sam said, and Steve laughed, the sound startlingly familiar.  

“I got a little carried away with the symbolism once in a while,” he admitted.  “But hey, the USO would’ve eaten that up.”

“Let’s send it to Bucky and tell him it’s the one,” Sam said, snapping a picture.

Steve flipped through a few more pages, yellowed with age.  “Yeah, these are really bad.”

“They belong in a museum,” Sam said.  “I mean a history museum, not an art museum.  The Met wouldn’t want anything to do with these.”

Steve knocked him with his shoulder and pulled a newer, cleaner-looking sketchpad forward.  “You’re the one who came asking _me_  for help, so you wanna fly around looking like a stamp collector’s fantasy or you wanna can it?” 

“All right, all right,” Sam said.

Steve opened the book.  “At first I had trouble figuring out how the wings fit in,” he said.  “I’d never really thought about how the suit could be modified to fly - Tony offered a couple of times, but it wasn’t for me.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Sam said.  “I maintain that you just liked making me come pick you up.”

“Hey, I had the best of both worlds.”

“You were a lazy son of a bitch.”

Steve snorted and flipped the page.  “Once I got into it, though, I think I got close.  It’ll need some modifications, I’m not an engineer or anything and we both know I have no idea how your flightsuit works, but - what do you think?”

The drawing on the page was - well, it was nothing like any of the versions Sam had seen so far. It was mostly the Falcon flightsuit, but it had a white star on the chest, and an extra hook in the back for the shield, and the wings - the wings were dark blue, so blue they were almost black, with red and white tips.  Steve had even drawn Sam’s face, the goggles a little sleeker and with a tiny wing on each temple, and Sam wanted to say it was cheesy as hell but he couldn’t get the words out.

He blew out a breath.  “Well, damn.  I think this is it, Cap.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Sam said.  “You came up with this in the last couple of days?”

“Well,” Steve said, shifting in his seat, “I’d maybe thought about it a couple of times.  Over the years.  In case you ever asked.”

“Right,” Sam said.  He took a sip of his coffee, stared down at the drawing.

“I’m glad you asked,” Steve said quietly.  “I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah,” Sam said.  “I miss you too.”

It was slight, the difference in their words, the gulf between present tense and past, but that made sense; they lived in slightly different worlds these days, in a way they never had before.  It wasn’t the way Sam would have wanted it, not in a million years, but that was one of the things he’d always loved about Steve, wasn’t it?  Steve did things his way.  So Sam would adjust, just like he always had.  He could do anything. 

He was Captain America, after all.

Steve clapped him on the shoulder.  “You want something stronger than coffee?”

“God, yes,” Sam said, and Steve laughed that familiar laugh and went to the cabinet to grab a bottle of whiskey, and Sam could still feel the imaginary weight of the shield on his back, but it felt a little lighter than usual, like for the first time since he’d been given it he was sharing it, and that was just fine, he thought.  That was all right with him.


End file.
